Interactive Data Visualization for Global Health

Lecture 1: Introduction

Outline for course:

  • theory,
  • projects,
  • tools,
  • meta-tools.

Exercises

Homework

Project

Course Learning Objectives:

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Make their own interactive data visualizations for global health metrics with D3,
  • Critique visualizations created by themselves and others,
  • Design novel data visualizations for new or existing health metrics data,
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of interactive data visualizations.

Grades:

  • class participation (10%),
  • homework (35%),
  • final project (55%).

Outline for the class:

  • introductory exercise,
  • reasons for IDV,
  • evaluating IDV,
  • many examples,
  • sketching exercise,
  • hands-on IDV exercise.

What is interactive data visualization?

Related domains:

  • information visualization,
  • data visualization,
  • infographics,
  • statistical graphics,
  • visual display of quantitative information.

An aside:

  • When I looked up "information design" in Wikipedia, the example was:
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Image(filename='images/DALY_disability_affected_life_year_infographic.png')
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Why do interactive data visualization?

Some goals in statistical graphics, historically:

William Playfair: memorable

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Otto Neurath: educational

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John Tukey: discovery

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Stephen Kosslyn: convince

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Another way to look at things:

(from Prof. Rafael Lozano)

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Image(url="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Ocean_pool_Porto_Moniz_Madeira.JPG",
      embed=True)
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Edward Tufte's selection: best graphic ever?

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# Images from http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/minard-tufte-kosslyn-godin-napoleon/
Image(url="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AYITBbUkIRQ/S_r2t_276AI/AAAAAAAAALc/GbQfEXOEZ6I/s1600/Minard.png", embed=True)
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3 great interactive data visualizations

Great IDV 1: baby name wizard

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http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager

Critique Time

  • Conceptual (What are its goals and does it accomplish them?)
  • Aesthetic (Overall appeal, objects, iconography, contrast, value, size, positioning, hierarchy, consistency, ...)
  • Technical

(based on I like pretty graphs, U Wisc Design Lab)

Great IDV 2: GBD tree maps

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http://viz.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd-compare/

Great IDV 3: Hans Rosling Ted Talk/Gap Minder

http://www.gapminder.org/

Overview of the theory of statistical graphics and data visualization

  • Garret Birkhoff (Aesthetic measure)
  • Edward Tufte (Visual display of quantitative information)
  • William Cleveland (The Elements of Graphing Data)
  • Stephen Koslynn (Understanding Charts and Graphs)
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10 Minute Break

...then...

Hands-on exercise